Page 224 of Wild Card 13

My mother left.

Ty let go.

The two wounds folded together so perfectly I could not tell where one ended anymore.

“You don’t get to do that,” I whispered.

His eyes lifted.

“You don’t get to decide that breaking my heart is some noble thing you’re doing for me.”

He swallowed hard.

“You promised me.” My voice shook. I could not make it stop. “You promised we would figure it out.”

“I know.”

“No, you don’t.” The tears were falling freely now, but I refused to wipe them away. “Because if you knew, you would be fighting right now.”

His face twisted.

For one breath, I thought he might.

His hand moved like he wanted to reach for me.

I held myself still.

Reach, I thought.God, please. Reach anyway.

He let his hand fall.

There it was.

The exact moment.

Not the party. Not the hallway. Not the closed door.

This.

This was the breaking.

I stepped back.

Ty’s breath left him in a sound so small I almost did not hear it. “Lucy.”

“No.” My voice had gone strangely calm. Empty in a way that scared me more than crying had. “Go to Fargo, Ty.”

He flinched again.

I reached behind me for the door handle.

His eyes were wet now. He did not wipe them. He just stood there in the morning sun, looking eighteen and shattered and still somehow beautiful enough to make the pain worse. “I love you,” he said.

I hated him for saying it then. I hated myself more because I believed him. “That’s not enough,” I whispered. Then I went inside and closed the door.

For a moment, I stood with my forehead almost touching the wood. My whole body shook, but no sound came out. The house behind me stayed quiet. Dad was already at the arena. Arlo was on a run.

No one was present to witness me become someone else.